Jamie Dupree

Confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday for President Trump’s choice for the post of U.S. Attorney General became quickly consumed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of the investigation into Russian interference, as nominee William Barr broke with a prime accusation of the President about the Mueller investigation.

“I don’t believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt,” Barr said, who was pressed immediately by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to investigate what Republicans say was wrongdoing within the FBI and Justice Department with regards to President Trump.

Barr’s statement was notable – since President Trump has repeatedly [More]

The bitter political dispute over funding for President Donald Trump’s border wall extended its reach on Tuesday, with over 40,000 members of the Coast Guard not being paid as scheduled, joining 800,000 federal workers who missed a paycheck last week, as there were no indications of any break in the impasse, which was spurred by a funding lapse for part of the federal government that started before Christmas.

“We must re-open the government immediately,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), as Democrats – and some Republicans – highlighted the stories of federal workers from back home who are being financially squeezed by [More]

With the first of a series of hearings set for later this month, Democrats on a key House committee on Monday sent letters to a dozen major pharmaceutical companies, demanding documents and information on how those drug giants set their prices, questioning why the cost of big name drugs have gone up at more than four times the rate of inflation over the last 12 years.

“The Committee on Oversight and Reform is investigating the actions of drug companies in raising prescription drug prices in the United States, as well as the effects of these actions on federal and state budgets [More]

President Donald Trump used a speech before a convention of farmers in New Orleans on Monday to make an extended defense of his call for funding for a border wall, a dispute which has spurred a partial government shutdown, making clear he will not accept anything less from Congress than full funding for his wall along the border with Mexico.

“We’re going to have a wall, we’re going to have a barrier, we’re going to have something that’s going to be very strong,” the President said to cheers at the 100th gathering of the American Farm Bureau.

With no solution in sight to a partial government shutdown which has denied scheduled paychecks to some 800,000 federal workers, and forced hundreds of thousands of those same employees to continue working without pay, President Donald Trump flies to New Orleans on Monday to address an agricultural group which is a very familiar with some of the impacts from the shuttering of certain federal agencies since the weekend before Christmas.

“Even though he’s not directly trying to hurt our farmers, this shutdown is going to hurt our farmers,” said American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall at the 100th American Farm Bureau [More]

While President Donald Trump has repeatedly made clear his desire to build hundreds of miles of wall along the Mexican border since early in his campaign for President, the GOP Congress never really came close to approving billions of dollars for the wall, though there were certainly opportunities for Republicans at several points to win as much as $25 billion for the border while the GOP was in charge of Congress in 2017 and 2018 – but those efforts failed as most GOP lawmakers backed away from possible bipartisan immigration compromises.

Even as the White House and Congressional Democrats were locked in continuing standoff about funding for border security, the House on Friday overwhelmingly voted to send a bill to President Donald Trump which would insure that federal workers are paid all of the money they would normally receive in salary – whenever a partial government shutdown finally ends.

On the twenty-first day of this shutdown dispute over money for the President’s border wall, the House voted 411-7 in favor of the retroactive pay bill, which had been approved a day earlier by the Senate on a voice vote.

Even as the White House and Congressional Democrats were locked in continuing standoff about funding for border security, the House on Friday overwhelmingly voted to send a bill to President Donald Trump which would insure that federal workers are paid all of the money they would normally receive in salary – whenever a partial government shutdown finally ends.

On the twenty-first day of this shutdown dispute over money for the President’s border wall, the House voted 411-7 in favor of the retroactive pay bill, which had been approved a day earlier by the Senate on a voice vote.

With no agreement between Congress and the President in the ongoing dispute over funding for a border wall, hundreds of thousands of federal workers will not receive their scheduled paychecks on Friday, even though over 400,000 have had to continue working for the government, as the partial government shutdown reached 21 days.

“Let’s stop this shutdown now,” NASA engineer Steve Ching said to cheers at a rally near the White House, as federal workers rallied in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

“We’re all wondering, how long will our families able to hold out,” Ching said, as workers from a variety of shuttered federal [More]

A week after taking control of the U.S. House for the 116th Congress, Democrats have set their first hearing with a key figure in investigations of President Donald Trump, as a House panel will hear from Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who plead guilty last year to violating campaign finance laws in 2016 by making hush money payments to two women at the direction of the President.

“I thank Michael Cohen for agreeing to testify before the Oversight Committee voluntarily,” Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) said in a written statement, as he noted the Special Counsel investigation which has [More]